Thursday, June 20, 2013

June 21, 1862---Word from London: The War's Too Lurid



JUNE 21, 1862:           

The Illustrated London News critiques American coverage of the war as being too lurid:



“The thunderclouds of war had been nearing each other too rapidly to leave it in doubt whether an explosion were at hand or not… As regards the slaughter—we say it without disrespect—one knows not what to believe when the American journals take to computation. Our readers will recollect the "awful carnage" which has marked every action throughout the war—on paper. They were almost prepared to find the total account something terrible. The returns appear to have at length been made up, not from sensation paragraphs, but from the army rolls, and the whole amount of lost, from Bull Bun to Banks's run, is 5791. Reading this, we hardly like to believe that this last battle has cost the Federals more than they have sacrificed during the year and a half of fighting; and, when we set down the numbers said to be lost at 7000 killed and wounded—so speaks the latest telegram—we do so subject to the revision of the bill by the Federal General. The latter states that the losses on the Confederate side "must have been" enormous, but we shall await General Johnson's account. Be the figures large or small, the battle does not seem to bring the war any nearer a termination, but, on the contrary, it shows that the Confederates are not only very strong but very resolved…”



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